Giving Iran One Last Chance

About the Author

James PhillipsSenior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern AffairsDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy

Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice's offer today to join multilateral talks with Iran
over its nuclear weapons program is meant to call Iran's diplomatic
bluff and mobilize international support for tough sanctions on
Iran.[1]
But joining the talks entails several risks. Tehran may interpret
the diplomatic offer as a weakening of U.S. resolve to block Iran's
drive for nuclear weapons. Or it may seek to exploit diplomatic
talks to drive a wedge between the U.S. and its allies and to buy
time to continue its nuclear efforts. If the U.S. is to join talks
with Iran, it must first obtain ironclad guarantees from its allies
that if Iran balks at negotiations or reneges on its commitments
then they will immediately impose strong sanctions. Moreover, the
U.S. must reach agreement with its allies on an acceptable
timeframe for negotiations and the precise terms to be offered to
Iran. Neglecting these steps would give Iran an opportunity to
subvert the talks for its own purposes and ensure that any talks
will ultimately fail to stop its nuclear program.

Iran has used
on-again, off-again diplomatic negotiations with the EU-3 (Britain,
France, and Germany) to forestall concerted international action
regarding its violations of its legal commitments under the 1968
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards agreement. Rice alluded to Iran's
past diplomatic duplicity when she stated, "In view of its previous
violations of its commitments and the secret nuclear program it
undertook, the Iranian regime must persuasively demonstrate that it
has permanently abandoned its quest for nuclear weapons." But it is
unclear how or why new Iranian promises to rule out nuclear weapons
could be treated as any more credible than its past promises, which
all stand broken.

While the IAEA can
inspect and monitor Iran's known nuclear facilities, it cannot
inspect what it cannot find. Iran could conceal nuclear weapons
development in clandestine facilities, as it has done before. Even
if Iran "fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and
reprocessing activities," as Secretary Rice has stipulated, there
remains the risk that Tehran could continue secret nuclear efforts
at undeclared facilities, albeit at a slower pace than today. Any
proposed deal with Iran must include much more intrusive
inspections and monitoring to reduce this risk.

There also is the
risk that Iran may exploit diplomatic talks to buy time to overcome
technological hurdles while it staves off sanctions. The United
States and its allies must have a common understanding on an
acceptable timeframe for negotiations that prevents Iran from using
the talks as a ruse to run out the clock and forestall
sanctions.

Washington also
must reach an agreement with its allies on the incentives and
disincentives to be presented to Iran. Otherwise, Iran will seek to
focus the negotiations on increasing the number of carrots to
exploit differences between the allies and focus blame on the
United States if the talks fail, as is likely.

If Iran continues
on its present path, Rice's diplomatic strategy could work only if
the United States has ironclad commitments from its European allies
and Japan to impose strong sanctions, outside the U.N. framework,
if continued Russian and Chinese foot-dragging makes that
necessary. While Rice hopes to force Iran to choose between
international sanctions and its nuclear weapons efforts, Moscow and
Beijing will seek to help their Iranian friends to escape strong
U.N. sanctions.

If Iran rejects
the talks, then Russia and China might be embarrassed into
accepting stronger sanctions than they would permit otherwise. But
such diluted sanctions are unlikely to be decisive in ending Iran's
longstanding efforts to attain nuclear weapons. Only if the U.S.,
Europe, Japan, and other allies present a determined and united
front in support of strong economic sanctions will they have a
chance of dissuading Iran from continuing its nuclear efforts,
short of war.

And if Iran accepts
U.S. conditions for proposed talks, Washington must be clear that
this is a last ditch diplomatic effort that will not be followed by
sweetened diplomatic offers in the future. Iran must not be allowed
to drag out the negotiations or play the Europeans off against the
United States. And the Europeans must commit to finally imposing
sanctions if Iran backs out of the talks or is caught cheating
again.

James
Phillips is Research Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies in the
Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a
division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for
International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.